High-level, goal-focused engagement can be a powerful tool to rebuild trust in democracy – but, if poorly understood or misused, it risks becoming performative and politically driven. Providing sector-wide research across engagement practice and policy, this report identifies five major challenges as impacting the role of strategic engagement in improving trust in democracy and democratic...

Democratic erosion is the incremental and multifaceted deterioration in the freedoms, guarantees and processes vital to the functioning of democracy. This interactive tool sets out a framework showing how different drivers of erosion interact, reinforce one another and create feedback loops that accelerate decline. It identifies five reinforcing loops of democratic erosion.

This report explores whether value pluralism – the recognition that people will continue to hold fundamentally different moral, religious and cultural beliefs – is compatible with a cohesive national identity in a liberal democracy. It argues that Australia’s future cohesion depends not on suppressing disagreement, but on managing it fairly. The report proposes five policy...

During the 2022 Victorian state election, multiple voting centres ran out of ballot papers on election day and at least one voting centre closed early. This report looks into the conduct of the 2022 Victorian state election regarding ballot paper shortages. It includes and assesses a full supplementary report provided by the Victorian Electoral Commission.

A collection of 12 short analyses examining some of the most pressing issues and policy questions facing the 48th Parliament. Each article gives a high-level perspective of significant public policy issues, covering background, context and legislative history, as well as some of the policy and legislative directions raised in the public debate.